Dark cure nitrogen cycle

[reefdummy]

I am cycling the dry rock with some live rock (cooking in the dark) it been 2 weeks and no ammonia and no nitrites. My NO3 is over 75 what is normal. No fish and it will cook for 3.5 more months. Normally it says i should do 50%WC, but sense i have no livestock there, i don’t expect it will go up. The question: do i need to do WC or can i just start adding bacteria or just let it be? I am trying to build up anaerobic bacteria in the rock (no sand there for now) it is not in my display tank yet. Please correct me if i am wrong at something. When it is all done, i want to go a way from big weekly WC

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'll move this to the main forum since it will get more answers there and is not intended to be an experiment.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Are you feeding a pinch of food every now and then? If you are, then nitrate would continue to rise, I would do water change.

If you don't feed anything to the tank at all, it would be interesting to know if the bacteria will survive that long without incoming energy. Not only to survive, but to seed the dry rocks as well. IDK

 

[reefdummy]

Are you feeding a pinch of food every now and then? If you are, then nitrate would continue to rise, I would do water change.

If you don't feed anything to the tank at all, it would be interesting to know if the bacteria will survive that long without incoming energy. Not only to survive, but to seed the dry rocks as well. IDK

No i don’t feed anything

 

[reefdummy]

I'll move this to the main forum since it will get more answers there and is not intended to be an experiment.

I would appreciate it

 

[reefdummy]

Are you feeding a pinch of food every now and then? If you are, then nitrate would continue to rise, I would do water change.

If you don't feed anything to the tank at all, it would be interesting to know if the bacteria will survive that long without incoming energy. Not only to survive, but to seed the dry rocks as well. IDK

It has live rock with it as well with a lot of stuff that died off

 

[nereefpat]

I am cycling the dry rock with some live rock (cooking in the dark) it been 2 weeks and no ammonia and no nitrites.

Did you ever add any ammonia? The way I would do it would be to use pure ammonia until the water in the tank reads somewhere in the 1-2 ppm range. Then just wait.

Normally it says i should do 50%WC, but sense i have no livestock there, i don’t expect it will go up. The question: do i need to do WC or can i just start adding bacteria or just let it be?

I wouldn't bother changing any water. The bacteria and the rock don't care about that. If the rock is "cooking" in the tank that you will use, do a water change before you add livestock if test values aren't where you want them to be.

 

[GatorGreg]

4 months?

Any particular reason you landed on 4 months. Seems a little extreme being you’re using live rock.

if it’s algae you’re worried about you do realize the moment you put light to it. You’re still going to see some algae.

 

[GatorGreg]

From me trying to understand your post.

It seems that you believe that letting this stuff sit in the dark for 4 months “cooking” is going to somehow give you the ability to not have to do as many water changes?

am I understanding that correctly?

 

[reefdummy]

Did you ever add any ammonia? The way I would do it would be to use pure ammonia until the water in the tank reads somewhere in the 1-2 ppm range. Then just wait.


I wouldn't bother changing any water. The bacteria and the rock don't care about that. If the rock is "cooking" in the tank that you will use, do a water change before you add livestock if test values aren't where you want them to be. I didn’t add any ammonia. I got ammonia just from what was on the life rock and it died off. I saw the ammonia spike and now it’s all gone and now after two weeks I have a lot of nitrates.

 

[MnFish1]

Are you feeding a pinch of food every now and then? If you are, then nitrate would continue to rise, I would do water change.

If you don't feed anything to the tank at all, it would be interesting to know if the bacteria will survive that long without incoming energy. Not only to survive, but to seed the dry rocks as well. IDK

to the OP, By definition, if you're cycling rock you need to have a food source. If there is nitrate present, that meants there must be bacteria there to produce nitrate. In all likelihood (assuming the test is accurate) - some of the stuff on your 'live rock' is dead. Curious, why are you doing it this way, why 3.5 more months? Im not sure why you would need to add bacteria.

TO @LordofCinder - without food bacteria will survive dormant for some time.

 

[GatorGreg]

To address the not wanting to do as many water changes once you’re set up issue.

Your bacteria that you’re working so hard in the 4 months to make sure is populating in great numbers, process AMMONIA. In that process NITRATE is created. You then have PHOSPHATES in your water from various things (foods, dead inverts, whatever) some of the nutrients are possibly not being exported from your tank via filtration methods (skimming, floss, whatever).

we do not do water changes to get rid of the AMMONIA that your bacteria is processing. You shouldn’t ever see ammonia in your testing or something is wrong. Meaning your bio filter (bacteria) aren’t keeping up. Meaning you’ve likely overstocked too soon. Or something has crashed your tanks bio filter.

we do water changes to replenish spent trace elements and help us export NITRATE and PHOSPHATE in the event that our filtration methods are not keeping up.

I think you may be a little confused here. Once your bacteria is there it’s there and it doesn’t take 4 months. The key is to go slow and not OVERLOAD your tanks bio filter and to let it grow as you gradually add livestock.


so you shouldn’t be worrying about “large” water changes weekly. Most do 10 percent.

people do carbon dose to lower their nutrients but that’s later and not the basics in my opinion. A new reefer wouldn’t want to be trifling with that yet.

 

[GatorGreg]

to the OP, By definition, if you're cycling rock you need to have a food source. If there is nitrate present, that meants there must be bacteria there to produce nitrate. In all likelihood (assuming the test is accurate) - some of the stuff on your 'live rock' is dead. Curious, why are you doing it this way, why 3.5 more months? Im not sure why you would need to add bacteria.

TO @LordofCinder - without food bacteria will survive dormant for some time.

I think OP may be a little confused. Probably misunderstood some information online. What OP is doing is extremely unnecessary and counterproductive. That’s 4 months that the tank could’ve been maturing and going through algae phases under lighting.

 

[reefdummy]

to the OP, By definition, if you're cycling rock you need to have a food source. If there is nitrate present, that meants there must be bacteria there to produce nitrate. In all likelihood (assuming the test is accurate) - some of the stuff on your 'live rock' is dead. Curious, why are you doing it this way, why 3.5 more months? Im not sure why you would need to add bacteria.

TO @LordofCinder - without food bacteria will survive dormant for some time.

I was watching biome cycle by BRS and decided to try that and keep myself from rushing things up

 

[MnFish1]

I was watching biome cycle by BRS and decided to try that and keep myself from rushing things up

I would say - you are certainly not 'rushing things up'. My comment would be - BRS aside - you could put your rock into a tank - and cure it there - (with totally new water) - or you could do the same and add fish.

EDIT - the key thing here is that you had live rock. As compared to all dry rock

 

[reefdummy]

From me trying to understand your post.

It seems that you believe that letting this stuff sit in the dark for 4 months “cooking” is going to somehow give you the ability to not have to do as many water changes?

am I understanding that correctly?

Kind of. With dark cure for 4 months all photosynthetic came from ocean dies off but the bacteria stays. I want to build the bacteria up, so when i will transfer it all to the display (i am aware of the micro cycle i will have sense i will add sand and i will have light. But cured rock will help to mature the tank. I and not sure how to get a way from WC though, that’s why i am asking. My thoughts: if i have enough anaerobic bacteria to transform NO3 to gas(don’t remember the formula), that will complete the cycle and i don’t have to do carbon dosing or Big WC i do now with my other tank that i didn’t have enough patience

 

[MnFish1]

Kind of. With dark cure for 4 months all photosynthetic came from ocean dies off but the bacteria stays. I want to build the bacteria up, so when i will transfer it all to the display (i am aware of the micro cycle i will have sense i will add sand and i will have light. But cured rock will help to mature the tank. I and not sure how to get a way from WC though, that’s why i am asking. My thoughts: if i have enough anaerobic bacteria to transform NO3 to gas(don’t remember the formula), that will complete the cycle and i don’t have to do carbon dosing or Big WC i do now with my other tank that i didn’t have enough patience

Unfortunately, you don't have enough anaerobic bacteria to transform Nitrate to N2 - if you did your nitrate would be zero. There is no such thing as a microcycle - at least not that I'm aware of.

 

[reefdummy]

I would say - you are certainly not 'rushing things up'. My comment would be - BRS aside - you could put your rock into a tank - and cure it there - (with totally new water) - or you could do the same and add fish.

EDIT - the key thing here is that you had live rock. As compared to all dry rock

Yes i could if i would have my tank here. It will be here in July and i will have to get all preparations before then. And when it all will be ready, my rock will be already good to go. So i am actually speeding the things up without rushing things. This is the last upgrade i do. And i am not transferring anymore crap and pests to the new tank. I am too tired to deal with that (one thing after another just because i tried to save on something or got too lazy to do quarantine or something like this)

 

[reefdummy]

Unfortunately, you don't have enough anaerobic bacteria to transform Nitrate to N2 - if you did your nitrate would be zero. There is no such thing as a microcycle - at least not that I'm aware of.

That’s why i created this post to see if there is any i can do to get it done

 

[Tired]

You're setting yourself up for a whopper of an ugly stage if you put all that algae-bare rock with all those dormant spores on it into the light.

If you want to get rid of nitrates and phosphates, grow something that uses them up (i.e. chaeto) and remove that. The trouble with trying to do 0 water changes isn't nitrates and phosphates- those are easy. The trouble is various organic compounds and coral warfare toxins that tend to build up. Live rock you've killed a bunch of things on won't fix that.

You should probably be doing quite large water changes to get those nitrates down- you don't want to kill all the beneficial life on that rock. Detritivores, pods, cryptic sponges, and so on.